Our First Trip!

It seems like forever since we closed on our new Passport 290BH that we bought at Lazydays! But finally.....our time for camping came. We left on September 11th to head over to Ft. Wilderness Campground at Disney World!

We headed over around 11am and got to the campground around 12:30 or so. We figured it would take a little longer since we were towing for the first time. The first big surprise came when at check in the cast member checking us in informed us that we had been upgraded to a...get this....Premium site! We were not expecting that at all (I only booked a full hookup). The all concrete pad was so nice and we were really close to the marina (not so close to the pools) but that was OK - we have our bikes!

Here we are in the 400 loop - Site 427. It was a very nice site! We met one fellow DISer (The Lug). The loop was small which was wonderful for the kids to ride their bikes on. There were also plenty of kids around (now Caleb wants an electric scooter for Christmas).

I love the Fort because there is plenty to do without even leaving the campground! Here is Mark and the kids goofy off in the kiddie pool area. This was obviously during the week when hardly anyone was around!

Caught a good picture of my hubby going down the slide! He loves to be silly for pictures.

Delena going down the slide. She always enjoys the pool at the Fort.

More pictures of our campsite - 427. We had really nice neighbors around and enjoyed this loop very much. I have to not get used to upgrades like this!

Pool party at the Fort! Delena actually won this hoola hoop competition. She got up to three hoola hoops and outlasted all the other kids.

This trip was neat because both Caleb and Taya were able to ride some rides they previously had not been able too. Caleb finally hit 48" and was able to ride Primeval Whirl in Animal Kingdom. Taya rode Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Test Track, Soarin and Dinosaur.

Taya had a blast on the slides. Her goofy swimming sometimes gave the lifeguards heart attacks. She likes to swim to the bottom and then swim out of the current, I can't tell you how many times the lifeguards were ready to jump in the pool after her!!

What trip to EPCOT would be complete without the kids pictures in the mouth of Bruce??

Caleb is in love here! A yellow Camaro at EPCOT. I had to pry him away from the car - crazy Bumblebee..

Friday evening, our friends came over to the Fort to camp the last two nights with us! Somehow they managed to talk Disney into the upgrade also and got the campsite right next to us. We had so much fun with them. They have a super nice Laredo by Keystone. Kinda makes our camper look a bit cheesy, but thats OK :)

Taya moved up to a 16" bike right before the trip. She did so well riding around. One thing we love about the Fort - the biking!

No trip to the Fort would be complete without a few long and nice bike rides. There is an awesome trail leading from the Fort over to the Wilderness Lodge. On occasion we see some wildlife....this night it was all about deer. We capture this deer crossing the road at the Wilderness Lodge.

These deer were on the trail. We had just started on the trail when we saw them. There were about 5 in all and a baby. So cool to see!!

And of course, Chip & Dale's singalong!

All in all the trip was amazing. We really enjoyed our camper. Had a few things happen though.

The first night, Caleb flooded the whole thing. He was washing his hands in the bathroom and the plug was in the sink. The water filled up that tiny little sink rather quickly and poured out all over the floor. He screamed and we ran in to find water gushing out of the bathroom. I shut the water off and got to cleaning up the mess....luckily no damage!

We are still trying to get used to the proper way to flush out the tanks. We had a few nice odors creeping in where things were caught in the sewer lines.

Then Sunday morning as we were packing up to leave, we discovered a leak under the kitchen sink. That will require a Lazydays visit for repairs.

Our first trip is definitely a learning experience. I hope we get more efficient as time goes on so that camping isn't as much work. I'm sure once we have the camper properly outfitted, it won't be such a chore.

Our next adventure begins on Friday, October 22. This is mine and Mark's 14th wedding anniversary so it is a solo trip to Ft. Wilderness....can't wait....

Until the next adventure!

The Great Adventure Begins!

Welcome to Passport to Camping! This is the Cook family's blog about what will be our many adventures camping. We began camping in December 2008 at Disney's Ft. Wilderness Resort. We started off in a tent for 3 nights and loved it. We headed back to Ft. Wilderness in March 2009 to celebrate Caleb's 5th Birthday. We borrowed a friend's pop up for that trip. Then we went in September 2009 for 7 nights in the same pop up. The dream began with the first camping trip...one day we would get a camper.

We started off wanting a pop up. Went to an RV show and fell in love with the Avalon by Coleman. We kept putting it off because Mark's job was "ify" -- good thing because he was laid off from work in July 2009. During his 11 month lay off, we went from wanting a pop up to wanting a hybrid to a travel trailer.

Now that Mark is working full time again - we were able to go ahead a purchase our camper. So on....

Friday, July 23, 2010 ---- the day we finalized the purchase of our new camper.

We purchased a 2011 Keystone Passport 290BH.

We arrived at Lazydays around 3pm - just as Tropical Storm Bonnie's rain bands were making their way through Central Florida. We met with the Finance guy and finalized all our paperwork. We got our insurance set up and headed over to the benefits office to learn about all our perks. After that, a walk through tech came and got us and took us to the camper where he went over everything with us. After he left we had dinner and watched the movie RV (with Robin Williams). The kids loved it!

We discovered however that our DVD player wasn't working properly. It would loose the connection for no reason. Item 1 added to the list of things to fix for Saturday!

Saturday morning, we dropped our Suburban off at a service bay to have the brake controller installed and they came and got the Passport to install the weight distribution hitch, etc. This was only supposed to take 3 hours, ended up taking 7! So we stayed for a second night because rain was coming and we didn't want to tow it for the first time in the rain. We hit the pool over at the Lazydays campground and enjoyed the storm later that night.

Here are a few pictures to document the beginning of a new era in our family!

Mark and our Walk Through tech at Lazydays (sorry can't remember his name). But he was very nice! Of course the rain bands from Tropical Storm Bonnie made for a nice outside inspection :)

The "master" bedroom. I love the decor used in the Passports! (aside, the bed isn't comfortable!) I went home before we stayed the second night and got the memory foam off our bed, that helped a lot.

The kids in the bunkhouse! My kids love making tents so they wasted no time make tents out of the quad bunks.

View from the bunkhouse into the main room. I love our entertainment center with the swivel TV. However, Mark's feet hit it in the night so it bugs him.

Caleb on night 1 in the top bunk. He was so excited to finally sleep in a bunk bed.

Taya in her bunk. We made her sleep in the bottom until Mark can make bed rails for the two top bunks.

The kids decided to play McDonalds with the plastic slide on the screen door. The things they come up with!

Night 2 at Lazydays....after we got back from the pool a big storm hit. Mark snapped this picture right before the storm started.

Another picture of the storm coming in. Well we know the Passport doesn't leak!

Outside Camping World right before we left to take it home. OK, so we admit, we were scared to death to tow this home! We had a "no talking" rule so Mark could concentrate! It was only a 15 minute ride to the house. We made it in one piece. Then we had to tow it to where we are keeping it, about 20 minutes away.

So stop back by. This is a work in progress, many more posts and pictures to come! And here is a list of our upcoming trips. And since this is a family blog....you can see posts from any of us - even the kids (in time):)

September 11-18 - Ft. Wilderness

October 22-24 Ft. Wilderness

October 30-Nov 1 - Ft. Wilderness (with the DIS board Fort Fiends)

November 24 - 28 Ft. Wilderness

December 24 - 26 Ft. Wilderness

December 31 - January 2 Ft. DeSoto Campground